Trump Admin Moves to End Housing Assistance for Ineligible Noncitizens

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) finalized a rule requiring residents of HUD-funded housing to prove American citizenship or carry eligible immigration status.

The new rule strengthens HUD’s enforcement of the law by requiring verification of U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status for all applicants and tenants benefiting from covered HUD programs, the agency said in a Nov. 10 statement.

Covered programs include HUD’s Public Housing programs, the Section 8 rental assistance programs, the Housing Development Grant programs, and the Section 236 rental assistance program, according to a Nov. 12 HUD rule published in the Federal Register.

The new rule seeks to end certain ineligible noncitizens taking advantage of HUD-financed housing by mixing with eligible citizens under a single household, known as mixed-status households.

Under existing regulations, HUD can continue prorated assistance indefinitely. The new rule will make this assistance temporary until family members living in the household are verified as eligible.

Furthermore, all individuals claiming to be Americans must provide appropriate documentation to verify their citizenship status.

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The regulation comes into effect on Dec. 14.

HUD-funded housing currently serves about 25 percent of eligible households in need of proper housing, HUD said in its latest statement.

“It’s unacceptable that America’s homeless veterans, disabled, elderly, and victims of domestic violence languish on waitlists while illegals and ineligibles scam our system. American taxpayers will no longer foot the bill,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in the statement.

An audit of HUD-assisted households conducted by HUD and the Department of Homeland Security identified almost 200,000 tenants with incomplete or unknown eligibility verification, the department said in the latest statement.

New Rule Criticism

Even if just one person in a family turns out ineligible, the family may have to give up rental assistance or split up, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research institute, said in a December 2025 report when the Trump administration was considering the rule.

The report said the rule could affect nearly 80,000 people and cause them to lose housing assistance. An estimated 37,000 children from mixed-status families living in HUD-assisted housing may have to face the consequences of family separation or homelessness due to the rule, the Center said, adding that nearly all of them are considered U.S. citizens.

The National Housing Law Project criticized the new HUD rule in a Nov. 10 statement.

“[The Trump] administration deflects blame for the housing crisis onto immigrants so they can continue dismantling HUD’s lifesaving housing programs,” Shamus Roller, CEO of the group, said in the statement.

“We are ready to fight alongside our immigrant neighbors to keep families whole and housed.”

Closing Loophole

The mixed-status loophole had allowed illegal immigrants to declare U.S. citizenship with no proof of eligibility and yet gain access to HUD-funded housing, Turner said in a Nov. 13 post on X.

The new regulation applies to HUD’s Public Housing programs, the Section 8 rental assistance programs, the Housing Development Grant programs, and the Section 236 rental assistance program.

HUD said in its statement that the recent action aligns with a February 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump—titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders.”

The order asked department and agency heads to improve eligibility verification systems to ensure that “taxpayer-funded benefits exclude any ineligible alien who entered the United States illegally or is otherwise unlawfully present in the United States.”

Roughly 2,000 local housing authorities manage these vouchers, and around 2.3 million households receive rental assistance through Section 8 each year. Demand is so high that eligible applicants usually wait several years to receive benefits. Only Americans and others legally present in the United States can qualify for the vouchers.

“HUD will leverage all available enforcement actions against entities who do not comply with the request for citizenship information, including, but not limited to, examination of HUD funding,” Turner said in the letter.